Physical and virtual meetings commonly converge in places such as conference rooms, where one or more people may confer with others through networked communications, frequently establishing video communications or similar modalities. Video communications and recording also takes place in other places such as auditoriums, meeting halls, even private offices. In such environments, lighting becomes an important aspect of user experience especially for participants who have to view a video recording (live or after the fact) of a meeting, presentation, etc.
Modern lighting systems allow different levels and forms of lighting (e.g., incandescent, fluorescent, etc.) usually through manual adjustment. Manual adjustment can be cumbersome. Furthermore, conditions within a room may change during a session. For example, a video conference may begin with the focus being on a presentation at a white board, but continue later with a conversation between people around a table. In such scenarios, people usually do not adjust the lighting based on the changing circumstances potentially leading to reduced video quality in the recording.
Proper illumination on the participants and the objects of interest is key for a video camera to capture and render a faithful image on the receiver end. Even with adjustable lighting levels, the lighting systems are typically installed based on the room structure and are not dynamically alterable based on a quality of image at the receiving end. For example, lighting adjustment levels set up for a white board section of a room may not provide optimum reflection or illumination for a computer monitor in the same section.